OK, this was initially the post about Gmail Paper and Matt Cutts’ blog being hacked, but the jokes just keep on coming, so I might as well turn it into a roundup.

1. Gmail Paper! Finally, you can get all those zigabytes of mail you’ve accumulated in your Gmail account in paper form, delivered right at your door.

Either that, or Google is being April foolish again.

2. Google TiSP! Google has really outdone itself this year, launching not one, but two April Fools jokes on us. I guess with all that brainpower around, they just can’t decide on what joke to use. Google TiSP (beta) is a free, self-installed in-home wireless broadband service. What does it mean for you, the customer? It means swimming through sewage.

3. Crunchgear goes ooooold school! - Just check out the Crunchgear homepage, and start partying like it’s 1991! To hell with white backgrounds - patterns and animated GIFs are where it’s at baby. Screenshot below.

4. Matt Cutts hacked!? As far as Google’s Matt Cutts is concerned, he got April Fooled a bit more seriously. A group that calls themselves the Dark SEO Team hacked his blog, which now looks quite ugly. A note to hackers: get some designers, fools!

These things usually don’t last long, so here’s a screenshot of Matt Cutts’ blog in its hacked state:

Just like I’ve said: ugly.

*update: of course, there’s always the possibility that Matt Cutts is himself playing a prank on all of us. I thought of that, I really did. I just forgot to write it right away. No, really.

5. TechCrunch acquires FuckedCompany. Well, this one might be real. It’s hard to tell, really. But it’s better to be safe than fooled, right?

6. Yahoo! Underground. Another tough call. The site looks quite weird, it’s hard to tell what’s going on there. It’s about weirdness. It’s about stuff you usually only see on Jackass. Actually, read the whole explanation here at Yahoo!’s blog. Let’s put it like this: if it’s a joke, I don’t get it. If it’s not a joke, I don’t get it either.

7. Scoble’s iReader! Robert Scoble goes on an insanely long rant about Apple’s new product: a portable book reader called iReader! Let’s look at a quote from the text:

“Each page doesn’t appear instantly, as it does on an LCD screen. Instead this screen technology actually has really tiny balls that spin over to reveal either black or white”

Honestly, Scoble, who were you going to fool with that? (:

8. Reddit goes the censorship route! Hats down, this one is best so far. Reddit announced on a blog post they’ll know censor all the stories they don’t agree with. They weren’t kidding (ok, they were kidding, bear with me for a second), either: just look at Reddit’s homepage.

9. Digg goes the slowness route! As their special take on the April Fools concept, Digg’s homepage is unbearably slow today! Oh, wait…

10. The ULTIMATE list! OK, this was fun for a while, but then I saw this. There’s absolutely no way to compete with this guy, so I can only humbly point into the direction of his website. All the jokes are there. Oh well, enjoy the rest of the Sunday, FranticIndustries will return tomorrow!

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 1st, 2007 at 2:15 am and is filed under Web, Web 2.0, Features, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.